As modern conveniences have increased, so have the pace of life and the distances between loved ones, friends and business associates. People have become more transient, and a truly global marketplace has emerged. Due to the rapid technological advancements of recent years and the associated changes in how people conduct their personal and business affairs, the general public's interest in buying and obtaining products and information remotely has significantly increased commensurately. On a personal level, today many people often buy gifts through long distance telephonic retail services or over the internet. As a result, the gift giver may never see or touch the gift, which is typically sent directly from a warehouse or retail store to the intended recipient, much less be able to add a “personal touch” to the gift of any kind. In the business world, as well, it is often the case that products or information are sent to a customer directly from a third-party supplier without a truly personal touch from the sending party. For businesses to gain and keep customers in today's competitive marketplace, a personal touch may be the deciding factor. Therefore, in both the personal and the commercial context, it is often desirable to provide a custom, personalized voice message with a gift, product or other information being sent to a recipient.
To this end, several voice message recording systems have been contemplated in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,719,920 and 5,826,235 disclose a system for remote recording of a personal audio greeting as compressed, digital data onto a “communication package.” With this system, the greeting is stored in the programming device, or “unitized interface system,” and then provided to the communication package as compressed, digital data; thereby necessitating that the circuitry of both the unitized interface system and the communication package contain components needed to transmit and store this compressed, digital data, causing the system to be relatively more complex, expensive and physically larger.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,425,078 and 5,490,206 disclose a method and system for recording an audio message onto a “keepsake” playback device through the use of a remote, computerized voice mailbox system. This system involves a programming device, or “subscriber set” that cannot itself store messages or be accessed directly. Rather, the vendor where the subscriber set is located must call the voice mailbox system to download the previously-recorded message directly to the keepsake. Thus, this system does not allow a customer on-site where the gift or card is located to conveniently record a personal greeting to a keepsake to be placed with the customer's purchase. Moreover, the customer cannot call into the subscriber set directly, but must always go through the voice messaging system and rely on the vendor to subsequently make the transfer to the keepsake. Therefore, the system disclosed by these patents is limited to only one means for a customer to record a personal voice greeting.
Finally, other examples of voice message recording systems known in the art include U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,698, which proposes that a customer's personal audio message be recorded from an answering machine onto a separate voice chip, or read-only memory device, that would then be inserted into a greeting card having the balance of the electronics for playback of the message pre-installed in the card, while U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,767 proposes that the entire voice message playback circuitry be pre-installed in a greeting card, ornament, stuffed animal, or the like. Thus, with these systems, all or a portion of the voice message playback circuitry is pre-installed in the card, gift or product being sent to a recipient, causing these systems to be bulky, inflexible and less adaptable to the needs of individuals and businesses alike.